The Last Man
beside the streams whose intense cold proclaimed their origin to be
from the slow-melting piles of congelated waters, amidst frequent
storms which might purify the air, we should find health, if in truth
health were not herself diseased.
We began our preparations at first with alacrity. We did not now bid
adieu to our native country, to the graves of those we loved, to the
flowers, and streams, and trees, which had lived beside us from
infancy. Small sorrow would be ours on leaving Paris. A scene of shame,
when we remembered our late contentions, and thought that we left
behind a flock of miserable, deluded victims, bending under the tyranny
of a selfish impostor. Small pangs should we feel in leaving the
gardens, woods, and halls of the palaces of the Bourbons at Versailles,
which we feared would soon be tainted by the dead, when we looked
forward to vallies lovelier than any garden, to mighty forests and
halls, built not for mortal majesty, but palaces of nature’s own, with
the Alp of marmoreal whiteness for their walls, the sky for their roof.
Yet our spirits flagged, as the day drew near which we had fixed for
our departure. Dire visions and evil auguries, if such things were,
thickened around us, so that in vain might men say—
These are their reasons, they are natural,[22]
we felt them to be ominous, and dreaded the future event enchained to
them. That the night owl should screech before the noon-day sun, that
the hard-winged bat should wheel around the bed of beauty, that
muttering thunder should in early spring startle the cloudless air,
that sudden and exterminating blight should fall on the tree and shrub,
were unaccustomed, but physical events, less horrible than the mental
creations of almighty fear. Some had sight of funeral processions, and
faces all begrimed with tears, which flitted through the long avenues
of the gardens, and drew aside the curtains of the sleepers at dead of
night. Some heard wailing and cries in the air; a mournful chaunt would
stream through the dark atmosphere, as if spirits above sang the
requiem of the human race. What was there in all this, but that fear
created other senses within our frames, making us see, hear, and feel
what was not? What was this, but the action of diseased imaginations
and childish credulity? So might it be; but what was most real, was the
existence of these very fears; the staring looks of horror, the faces
pale even to ghastliness, the voices struck dumb with harrowing dread,
of those among us who saw and heard these things. Of this number was
Adrian, who knew the delusion, yet could not cast off the clinging
terror. Even ignorant infancy appeared with timorous shrieks and
convulsions to acknowledge the presence of unseen powers. We must go:
in change of scene, in occupation, and such security as we still hoped
to find, we should discover a cure for these gathering horrors.
On mustering our company, we found them to consist of fourteen hundred
souls, men, women, and children. Until now therefore, we were
undiminished in numbers, except by the desertion of those who had
attached themselves to the impostor-prophet, and remained behind in
Paris. About fifty French joined us. Our order of march was easily
arranged; the ill success which had attended our division, determined
Adrian to keep all in one body. I, with an hundred men, went forward
first as purveyor, taking the road of the Côte d’Or, through Auxerre,
Dijon, Dole, over the Jura to Geneva. I was to make arrangements, at
every ten miles, for the accommodation of such numbers as I found the
town or village would receive, leaving behind a messenger with a
written order, signifying how many were to be quartered there. The
remainder of our tribe was then divided into bands of fifty each, every
division containing eighteen men, and the remainder, consisting of
women and children. Each of these was headed by an officer, who carried
the roll of names, by which they were each day to be mustered. If the
numbers were divided at night, in the morning those in the van waited
for those in the rear. At each of the large towns before mentioned, we
were all to assemble; and a conclave of the principal officers would
hold council for the general weal. I went first, as I said; Adrian
last. His mother, with Clara and Evelyn under her protection, remained
also with him. Thus our order being determined, I departed. My plan was
to go at first no further than Fontainebleau, where in a few days I
should be joined by Adrian, before I took flight again further
eastward.
My friend accompanied me a few miles from Versailles. He was sad; and,
in a tone of unaccustomed despondency, uttered a prayer for our speedy
arrival among the Alps, accompanied with an expression of vain regret
that we were not already there. “In that case,” I observed, “we can
quicken our march; why adhere to a plan whose dilatory proceeding you
already disapprove?”
“Nay,” replied he, “it is too late now. A month ago, and we were
masters of ourselves; now,—” he turned his face from me; though
gathering twilight had already veiled its expression, he turned it yet
more away, as he added —“a man died of the plague last night!”
He spoke in a smothered voice, then suddenly clasping his hands, he
exclaimed, “Swiftly, most swiftly advances the last hour for us all; as
the stars vanish before the sun, so will his near approach destroy us.
I have done my best; with grasping hands and impotent strength, I have
hung on the wheel of the chariot of plague; but she drags me along with
it, while, like Juggernaut, she proceeds crushing out the being of all
who strew the high road of life. Would that it were over—would that her
procession achieved, we had all entered the tomb together!”
Tears streamed from his eyes. “Again and again,” he continued, “will
the tragedy be acted; again I must hear the groans of the dying, the
wailing of the survivors; again witness the pangs, which, consummating
all, envelope an eternity in their evanescent existence. Why am I
reserved for this? Why the tainted wether of the flock, am I not struck
to earth among the first? It is hard, very hard, for one of woman born
to endure all that I endure!”
Hitherto, with an undaunted spirit, and an high feeling of duty and
worth, Adrian had fulfilled his self-imposed task. I had contemplated
him with reverence, and a fruitless desire of imitation. I now offered
a few words of encouragement and sympathy. He hid his face in his
hands, and while he strove to calm himself, he ejaculated, “For a few
months, yet for a few months more, let not, O God, my heart fail, or my
courage be bowed down; let not sights of intolerable misery madden this
half-crazed brain, or cause this frail heart to beat against its
prison-bound, so that it burst. I have believed it to be my destiny to
guide and rule the last of the race of man, till death extinguish my
government; and to this destiny I submit.
“Pardon me, Verney, I pain you, but I will no longer complain. Now I am
myself again, or rather I am better than myself. You have known how
from my childhood aspiring thoughts and high desires have warred with
inherent disease and overstrained sensitiveness, till the latter became
victors. You know how I placed this wasted feeble hand on the abandoned
helm of human government. I have been visited at times by intervals of
fluctuation; yet, until now, I have felt as if a superior and
indefatigable spirit had taken up its abode within me or rather
incorporated itself with my weaker being. The holy visitant has for a
time slept, perhaps to show me how powerless I am without its
inspiration. Yet, stay for a while, O Power of goodness and strength;
disdain not yet this rent shrine of fleshly mortality, O immortal
Capability! While one fellow creature remains to whom aid can be
afforded, stay by and prop your shattered, falling engine!”
His vehemence, and voice broken by irrepressible sighs, sunk to my
heart; his eyes gleamed in the gloom of night like two earthly stars;
and, his form dilating, his countenance beaming, truly it almost seemed
as if at his eloquent appeal a more than mortal spirit entered his
frame, exalting him above humanity. He turned quickly towards me, and
held out his hand. “Farewell, Verney,” he cried, “brother of my love,
farewell; no other weak expression must cross these lips, I am alive
again: to our tasks, to our combats with our unvanquishable foe, for to
the last I will struggle against her.”
He grasped my hand, and bent a look on me, more fervent and animated
than any smile; then turning his horse’s head, he touched the animal
with the spur, and was out of sight in a moment.
A man last night had died of the plague. The quiver was not emptied,
nor the bow unstrung. We stood as marks, while Parthian Pestilence
aimed and shot, insatiated by conquest, unobstructed by the heaps of
slain. A sickness of the soul, contagious even to my physical
mechanism, came over me. My knees knocked together, my teeth chattered,
the current of my blood, clotted by sudden cold, painfully forced its
way from my heavy heart. I did not fear for myself, but it was misery
to think that we could not even save this remnant. That those I loved
might in a few days be as clay-cold as Idris in her antique tomb; nor
could strength of body or energy of mind ward off the blow. A sense of
degradation came over me. Did God create man, merely in the end to
become dead earth in the midst of healthful vegetating nature? Was he
of no more account to his Maker, than a field of corn blighted in the
ear? Were our proud dreams thus to fade? Our name was written “a little
lower than the angels;” and, behold, we were no better than ephemera.
We had called ourselves the “paragon of animals,” and, lo! we were a
“quint-essence of dust.” We repined that the pyramids had outlasted the
embalmed body of their builder. Alas! the mere shepherd’s hut of straw
we passed on the road, contained in its structure the principle of
greater longevity than the whole race of man. How reconcile this sad
change to our past aspirations, to our apparent powers!
Sudden an internal voice, articulate and clear, seemed to say:—Thus
from eternity, it was decreed: the steeds that bear Time onwards had
this hour and this fulfilment enchained to them, since the void brought
forth its burthen. Would you read backwards the unchangeable laws of
Necessity?
Mother of the world! Servant of the Omnipotent! eternal, changeless
Necessity! who with busy fingers sittest ever weaving the indissoluble
chain of events!—I will not murmur at thy acts. If my human mind cannot
acknowledge that all that is, is right; yet since what is, must be, I
will sit amidst the ruins and smile. Truly we were not born to enjoy,
but to submit, and to hope.
Will not the reader tire, if I should minutely describe our long-drawn
journey from Paris to Geneva? If, day by day, I should record, in the
form of a journal, the thronging miseries of our lot, could my hand
write, or language afford words to express, the variety of our woe; the
hustling and crowding of one deplorable event upon another? Patience,
oh reader! whoever thou art, wherever thou dwellest, whether of race
spiritual, or, sprung from some surviving pair, thy nature will be
human, thy habitation the earth; thou wilt here read of the acts of the
extinct race, and wilt ask wonderingly, if they, who suffered what thou
findest recorded, were of frail flesh and soft organization like
thyself. Most true, they were— weep therefore; for surely, solitary
being, thou wilt be of gentle disposition; shed compassionate tears;
but the while lend thy attention to the tale, and learn the deeds and
sufferings of thy predecessors.
Yet the last events that marked our progress through France were so